The power of the informal economy
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Robert Neuwirth |
TEDGlobal 2012
• June 2012
Robert Neuwirth spent four years among the chaotic stalls of street markets, talking to pushcart hawkers and gray marketers, to study the remarkable "System D," the world's unlicensed economic network. Responsible for some 1.8 billion jobs, it's an economy of underappreciated power and scope.
Robert Neuwirth spent four years among the chaotic stalls of street markets, talking to pushcart hawkers and gray marketers, to study the remarkable "System D," the world's unlicensed economic network. Responsible for some 1.8 billion jobs, it's an economy of underappreciated power and scope.
This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.
Volunteer to help favela residents fight for their rights.
About the speaker
Robert Neuwirth’s writings on the street-level reality of the developing world have opened a new dialogue on development and economics.
John Berger | Vintage, 1992 | Book
Berger finds poetry in the humdrum, and pragmatism in big dreams. This trilogy movingly chronicles the social dislocations and new social conglomerations of rural-to-urban migration.
John Berger | Bloomsbury USA, 2000 | Book
John Berger | Vintage, 1992 | Book
Patrick Chamoiseau | Vintage, 1998 | Book
Chamoiseau and Latife Tekin (below) offer evocative accounts in which squatters and street vendors are fully formed characters and participants in their own communities and political life. In Juan Goytisolo's book (also below), the street market functions as a welcoming oasis, the antithesis of a separated, elitist, regimented, rule-bound Western city.
Patrick Chamoiseau | Anchor, 1999 | Book
Latife Tekin | Marion Boyars Publishers, 2000 | Book
Juan Goytisolo | Dalkey Archive Press, 2008 | Book
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This Durban, South Africa-based shackdwellers' group specializes in speaking truth to power.
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I'm not convinced that scaling up is always good, but if any poor people's movement can operate at a global scale, SDI would be the one.
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This is a consortium of NGOs from around the world promoting rights, recognition and dignity for informal workers.
John F. C. Turner, ed. and Robert Fichter, ed. | Collier Macmillan, 1973 | Book
Turner was the first builder/planner/architect to articulate the obvious: that squatters were creative neighborhood developers who ought to have the right to build their own communities.
John F. C. Turner | Marion Boyars Publishers, 2000 | Book
Janet MacGaffey and Rémy Bazenguissa-Ganga | Indiana University Press, 2000 | Book
This is an innovative look at a uniquely African version of globalization.
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The gentle British anarchist, who died in 2010, wrote widely on planning, housing and organizing. Some of his essays can be found at The Anarchist Library.
Colin Ward | AKPress, 2005 | Book
Andro Linklater | Bloomsbury USA, 2013 | Book
Linklater's latest, and, sadly, last book (he died suddenly, as it was being published), started as an examination of the roots of the fiscal meltdown of 2008-2009 and morphed into a nuanced history of the power and perils of private property.
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This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.
Volunteer to help favela residents fight for their rights.